


tethered.

by cryptonomica



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, M/M, Podfic Available, Reincarnation, Soulmates, he's really going thru it, poor felix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27612317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptonomica/pseuds/cryptonomica
Summary: Maybe the stress of promoting is finally getting to him. Maybe he’s losing his mind. Maybe soulmates are real.or, the 5 times Felix remembers his past lives with Chan, and the 1 time Chan remembers, too.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Felix
Comments: 98
Kudos: 477





	tethered.

**Author's Note:**

> the brainworms got me. i am fully here now. this was supposed to be a quick thing but we're here and i'm suffering.
> 
> an enormous thank you to [sierra](https://twitter.com/jazzdaddyspcl), who sparked this idea and ran with it like a speeding 18-wheeler alongside me, and [lars](https://twitter.com/svt_nap), who loved and supported this baby since its birth as a stream of consciousness outline in a google doc. thank u both for ur insanely kind words and invaluable beta help.
> 
> title & epigraph from [turning page by sleeping at last](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y16wQKZUpvQ&ab_channel=coffeelovemusic)
> 
> [link to podfic!!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28439730)

_Though we're tethered to the story we must tell  
_ _When I saw you, well, I knew we'd tell it well  
_ _With a whisper, we will tame the vicious seas  
_ _Like a feather, bringing kingdoms to their knees._

**1.**  
**November, 2018.**

When Felix first feels it, it comes over him like a wave. Not the gentle kind that laps at his ankles, but the vicious kind, slamming into him unexpectedly from behind and dragging his prone body back into the tide with it.

He’s in the bathroom when it happens. One moment he’s reaching for his cleanser to wash the day off, and the next he’s gripping onto the edge of the bathroom counter, air punched out of him by the suddenness. His head _throbs,_ like his brain has been set on fire, but his eyes are being held open as if by force.

He sees flashes of unfamiliar moments, all spliced together haphazardly and going by so quickly that he can only grasp the vague sense of what’s going on. He sees dirt roads, then a scene cut. He tastes ocean water—cut. He feels a hand holding his own—cut. He sees _him_. He sees him again, and again, and again. Cut. Cut. Cut.

It’s like watching a movie, he thinks through the pain. It’s like watching thousands of movies all at once, never getting the full picture, but one thing he can parse with certainty is that he’s a starring role in each one. It’s all through his own eyes, first person perspective. And starring opposite him—

He’s left gasping when it all stops. He’s not sure if he breathed throughout it all, but considering he’s still conscious, what felt like decades must have only lasted a minute or so. His knees feel weak, so he lets his weight fall to the tile and curls in on himself. Protecting himself.

He doesn’t know what he just saw, or why he saw it, but his brain feels like it’s simmering in the aftermath of a raging fire. All he knows is that it was _himself_ in each moment that flashed in his head, he could _feel_ it was himself. And in every single one—

The only thing he’s sure of, the only thing he could discern from the onslaught of whatever just hit him, is Chan. Chan’s presence, and the distinct feeling of warm love he feels when Chan takes care of him.

That sucks. He thought he’d done a good job shoving that invasive feeling down.

A sob rips from his chest before he can stop it. He feels the most loved he’s ever felt and the loneliest he’s ever been at the same time, and it’s left him feeling like a shell of a person, empty and reeling and trying desperately to piece together the past few minutes.

He’s not sure how long he’s been crying when he hears the bathroom door open. Wordlessly, knees sink to the floor and strong arms wrap around him—it’s Changbin, he deduces, faintly smelling the comforting scent of his cologne. He doesn’t have the energy to pretend like he’s okay, and he knows he doesn’t have to pretend around Changbin, so he grips onto the fabric of Changbin’s sleeves and lets himself cry harder into his chest.

Felix loves Changbin because he doesn’t care about getting Felix’s tears and snot all over his shirt. He holds him, grounding him in the present and offering him the space to cry without asking why. Which is good, because Felix can barely explain to himself what just happened, let alone to anyone else. He’d sound crazy because it _is_ crazy. 

Maybe the stress of promoting is finally getting to him. Maybe he’s losing his mind. Maybe soulmates are real.

Once Felix has calmed down enough, left with just the remnant hiccups of his breakdown, Changbin nuzzles his nose into Felix’s hair. “Want to go to bed?” he asks, so so gently.

Felix pulls back just enough to wipe his eyes and sniffs, nodding his head.

Changbin reaches around Felix, rips off a long strip of toilet paper from the roll behind him, and places it in Felix’s palm. “Want to crash in my bed?”

Felix is touched that Changbin knows that’s what he needs to feel better, but he still feels a jolt of nerves run through him. Changbin is Chan’s roommate, but unlike Changbin, Chan won’t let Felix get away without incessantly asking what’s wrong; he cares too much to let it slide. And god, that would hurt worse, wouldn’t it? Chan’s care and worry over him would feel like pressing a thumb hard against his bruised heart.

Regardless, it sounds nice to be near someone, so he nods another yes and mumbles a thank you. For once, he’s thankful that Chan works at the company office late into the night.

Felix blows his nose, wincing at himself for being gross and loud. Changbin laughs, a soft and endeared thing, and it makes Felix feel a little better. He’s lucky, he thinks. He’s lucky to have them all.

Changbin hoists them up to stand and keeps a steady arm around Felix’s side as they walk to his room. Felix plops on Changbin’s bed, slipping under the comforter as Changbin strips out of his snotty shirt in favor of a clean one to sleep in.

“Hyung?”

Changbin joins him under the covers, spreading his arm against the pillow as an invitation for Felix to cuddle up. “Hmm?”

“Don’t tell the others,” Felix says. “About what just happened. Please.”

“I wasn’t going to, don’t worry.”

“I don’t know what was wrong,” he continues. Lying to Changbin feels bad. “I just needed to get it out of my system, I guess.”

Changbin tugs Felix into his side and lets out a quiet hum, a small sound that says he didn’t quite believe him. Still, he doesn’t pry. “I’ve got you, I promise,” he replies. Felix believes him.

He doesn’t sleep that night, but he didn’t really expect to. Even after Changbin’s breathing evens out into something steady and shallow, something that would typically lull him to sleep, all Felix can see when he closes his eyes is Chan. Not his Chan, though, but snapshots of other Chans—Chans that hold his hand, Chans that kiss him, Chans that act like they’re in love with Felix.

Flashes of _whatever_ he just saw are starting to clear up as the hours go on, like he’s slowly remembering distant memories from his childhood that he’d forgotten about with time. He can feel the phantom touch of Chan’s lips against his own, and that sucks even more. It was easier to deal with his heartache before he knew what that felt like.

Felix wants nothing more than to sleep and wake up to this all being some fucked up dream, but his body and brain fight him on that. When Chan eventually comes home in the early hours of the morning, Felix pretends to be asleep. He can’t guarantee how he’ll react if he has to face him this soon.

The next morning, Felix wakes up to an empty room. He had eventually become emotionally exhausted enough to pass out for a few short hours, so he’s grateful for late schedules that let him sleep in. His eyes are still warm and bleary from crying, and unfortunately for him, the hazy memories are still rattling around in his brain. He runs a hand over his face and sighs.

He’s sort of scared to leave the room, if he’s honest. He’s not sure if this is all in his head or if the universe bestowed this cursed knowledge on Chan last night, too. What would happen if it didn’t? What would happen if it _did?_

Once he musters up the courage, he drags his tired feet to the kitchen to force himself to eat something. The members seem to be scattered around the dorm, all of them way too loud for how emotionally hungover he feels. 

Chan’s at the kitchen table inhaling a bowl of cereal as he scrolls through his phone. He lifts his head when he hears Felix pad into the room and scrunches up his face into as much of a smile as he can with a mouth full of cereal. It’s cute. Felix feels like he’s going to puke.

“G’morning, Lix,” Chan greets him in English, cheerful and showing no indication that he had a mirroring existential crisis the night before.

Maybe that’s a good thing, because now things don’t have to change if Felix doesn’t let them. Or maybe it’s an awful thing, because Felix is alone in all of this. Felix’s head is full of so many maybes that he’s not sure what’s real anymore.

“Morning,” Felix rasps in reply. He decides his stomach can’t handle food right now, so he opts to just grab a bottle of juice from the fridge instead.

Chan’s lips turn downward into a worried frown at the sound of Felix’s voice. “You sound tired. Your eyes are kinda red. You alright?”

“You’re one to talk, coming home at 4am nearly every night,” Felix jeers, no malice behind his words. He sits at the opposite end of the table and cracks the seal on the bottle. “But no, I’m fine. I just had a hard time sleeping last night is all.”

“I saw you crashing with Changbin when I got home last night, so I’m glad you eventually got some sleep,” Chan says, shoveling another spoonful into his mouth. He swallows, then tacks on, “Please take care of yourself.”

Felix looks down at the woodgrain on the table. He can’t bear to look Chan in the eye yet. “Yeah, I will. I will if you will. You work too hard, hyung.”

“I’m getting some bangers out of it, though.” Chan shrugs. “Speaking of, remind me to show you the song I started working on last night. Thought of you while making it. It’s right up your alley.”

Felix’s heart breaks, but when he looks up from the table to look at Chan, the proud look on his face stitches it right back together. He takes a swig of his juice and smiles back. “I’d love to hear it.”

**2.**  
**December, 2018.**

What he saw were memories, Felix figures. They’re still half-blurred and unfamiliar, but they’re memories nonetheless. He’s still not sure why, and he’s definitely not sure what it means, but his google search history is now filled with hundreds of inquiries related to “reincarnation” and “past lives”.

He was never really a believer in reincarnation. It wasn’t part of the religion he grew up with, but to be fair, none of what he learned in church sounded like a realistic depiction of the afterlife either. It just seemed so far off, too fantasy-like for him to believe in. His soul felt like his own, and the idea of there being past-Felixes made him feel antsy and out of touch with himself in a way that he couldn’t explain.

But say it was true, and that what he saw were glimpses of past lives:

In every lifetime, he finds Chan. That’s the one constant throughout all the bits he can splice together: he _always_ finds Chan. He can’t think about that part too much without wanting to curl in on himself, because he starts feeling the crushing weight of falling in love a thousand times. A thousand and one, actually, because history repeats itself, and he’s already fallen in this lifetime too.

That led him to searching up “soulmates” and reading up any article or blog post he could find on the subject. If he was going to suspend his disbelief enough to humor the idea that past lives exist, then he might as well be open to the idea of soulmates existing too.

It’s all speculative, obviously. Some say that soulmates always find each other and always fall in love until the very end. Some say that soulmates can be platonic, that the universe just makes sure that the person is in your life in some way. Whether you fall in love is up in the air. Some say that you might never meet your soulmate, because there are 7.6 billion people on Earth and the possibility of meeting them is slim. He’s already met Chan, so at least there’s that.

Felix stayed up late every night researching until he started getting a headache from the eye strain, sometimes falling asleep with his phone still in his hand.

They’re at a photoshoot now. It’s for some magazine that Felix can’t remember the name of, but the styling they’ve given him is unique enough that he’s curious as to how it’ll all turn out.

He steps out of hair and makeup with his blonde hair pushed back and away from his face. His eyes are smokey with pops of gold glitter, matching the regal reds and golds on the jacket he’s been put in. He feels fierce, elegant, and he’s ready to do his thing in front of the camera.

“Oh wow,” he hears as he walks out to the main photoshoot stage. He turns his head and sees Chan, still in his clothes from home but likely on his way to get outfitted. 

“Hmm?”

“You look great,” Chan says, looking over Felix’s face in a way that makes Felix’s ears go red. “They did a good job with your makeup. Your hair, too. You look like a prince.”

Felix looks down to hide his blush, fiddling with a button on his jacket as a distraction. He’s often told he looks nice, but it’s always different hearing it from Chan. “Wow, thanks, hyung. You’re going to look great, too.”

“Yeah, well,” Chan runs a hand through his hair, dark and curly and still unruly from rushing out of the dorm this morning, “we’ll see how they tame this monster.” He gives Felix a small wave before starting to walk off. “See you in a bit.”

Then Chan is off, leaving Felix alone to fill the time while everyone else gets dolled up. He’ll go find a spot to settle into, he thinks. Maybe watch YouTube on his phone until he’s called to the stage.

But the powers that be have another plan for him, apparently. Felix only makes it a few steps before his vision starts to blur, tripping over his feet as he attempts to walk. He starts to worry, scanning his surroundings for somewhere to sit down before he loses his balance completely. He makes it long enough to open a metal folding chair and fall into it.

It’s like a movie again, but this time it’s just one scene, crystal clear.

It’s dark out, sometime in the dead of night. Felix feels grass tickling at his ankles as he sneaks through an open field with a horse stable in his sights. He looks behind him, making sure no one is following him, and speeds up his pace. He’s nervous—he knows he shouldn’t be doing this, but he can’t find it in him to care.

He circles the stable to the side facing away from his home. It’s far enough away that no one would be able to see him, his parents long retired to bed, but. Just in case.

Chan smirks when he sees Felix approach, leaning against the wooden frame of the stable with his arms crossed over his chest. His clothes are plain, an off-white hanbok that’s old with time and dirty with work. It’s hard to ignore how it juxtaposes the vibrant purples and blues of Felix’s own clothing, but Chan looks good. Chan would look good in just about anything.

“I was worried you weren’t coming,” Chan says, uncrossing his arms and standing straight.

“Of course I was coming,” Felix pouts. “I’m the one who asked you to meet me.”

“And why’s that? It’s well past midnight.”

“It’s been awhile since I’ve properly gotten to see you.” Felix saunters up to Chan, placing his arms around his neck. “Just missed you, is all.”

Chan shakes his head and tuts disapprovingly, but his hands rest on Felix’s hips. “You’re going to get in trouble one of these days, Yongbok-sshi.”

Felix rolls his eyes, threading his fingers through the back of Chan’s hair. “I’ve told you, please don’t be formal with me. You’re older than me.”

“And you’re nobility,” Chan reminds him with a pointed look. “Your parents could have my head.”

Felix nuzzles his nose against Chan’s cheek and hums. “And yet, you still come to see me.”

Chan breathes out a laugh. “I’d risk my life for you, yeah,” he says easily. He places a kiss on Felix’s forehead. “Just wish it were different.”

Felix nods. He’s laid awake countless nights knowing that he’d have to give up these covert meetings with Chan, soon set to marry a woman of his parents’ choosing instead of getting to spend his life with the son of a merchant he’d fallen in love with.

He can’t think of a proper response, so he leans up and kisses Chan instead. He pushes him against the wood of the stable wall and kisses him until they’re both breathless, panting and aching for more. Sometimes, like right now, they can forget. Society set them up to fail from the beginning, but they can make the most of the time they have together in secret.

Felix jolts out of the memory with a gasp for air. His eyes are a little teary, both from what he just saw and from probably not blinking the entire time, so he tilts his head back to blink the tears away so as to not mess up his makeup.

“Lix-hyung?”

Felix jumps, his hand over his heart as he turns to see a worried-looking Jeongin. He wonders how much of that Jeongin just saw. He wonders how much time actually passed in the real world while he was checked out.

“Are you...alright?”

Felix exhales. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he reassures, to himself as much as Jeongin. “Just spaced out for a second.”

Jeongin steps closer to Felix, patting his shoulder a few awkward times. “Okay,” he says tentatively. “Just...making sure.”

Felix gives him a weak thumbs up and an even weaker smile. Thankfully, Jeongin leaves it at that. Once Felix is alone again, he puts his head in his hands and takes a deep breath to calm his nerves.

It’s only been a week since the initial flood of memories, but Felix foolishly hoped it was a one-off thing. A fluke. This one, though, was the most clearly-formed flashback he’s experienced. He backtracks the moments leading up to him blacking out, then remembers Chan’s voice: _“You look like a prince.”_

He wonders if there’s a correlation. He might be reaching, but it doesn’t seem impossible given all the things he’s had to come to terms with recently. Ultimately, he decides to table his inevitable crisis until they get home and he can lock himself in the bathroom for an hour. Maybe have a nice cry in the shower.

When Chan walks out of hair and makeup 30 minutes later, looking way too handsome in his own princely regalia, Felix accepts that he’s got a long day ahead of him.

**3.**  
**February, 2019.**

Touring is exhausting, but Felix feels so full of life as he steps out of the rental car and into the hot Australian sun. The four members in this car all scramble out one by one, with Seungmin circling to the trunk to start unpacking the coolers and blankets they’ve brought to the beach.

It’s a rare day off. They’ve just finished up their two Australian shows, both of which were more emotional than he expected them to be. Between proudly performing in their hometown for the first time and Felix dealing with the whole “past lives” bullshit, it shouldn’t have been surprising that both shows ended on a teary note.

They’ve worked hard, so a day at Bondi Beach is a welcomed break for all of them. Especially for Felix, because while working constantly hasn’t succeeded in distracting his defective brain, maybe today will be okay.

The memories have been happening more often and it’s really starting to take a toll on him. They trickled in slowly, only showing up when something specific yanked them out of him. It would happen once a week, then a few times a week, and now it’s daily. He’s just happy that he’s made it through these past few shows without blacking out mid-song, but still. He just wants one day without being reminded of what has been and what could be.

If it wasn’t so close and personal, Felix would venture to say that they’re entertaining to watch. At least his lives were interesting, he reasons, because witnessing a million boring lives would make this experience much less bearable. He’s had some favorites so far, like the lifetime where Chan was a wealthy artist and Felix lived his days as his muse, or the lifetime where they grew up together on adjacent farms and travelled to local markets to sell their produce together as pre-teens. There have been some not-so-great ones too, like the lifetime where they didn’t meet until they were in their 40’s, both married with families, and spent the rest of their lives secretly longing for each other and mourning what they both knew could never happen. That one in particular Felix hopes he never revisits.

As badly as he wants to tell Chan, he can’t bring himself to do it. He’s aware of how impossible it all sounds. But regardless, as much as he misses home sometimes, he shudders to think of what would have happened if he’d never left Australia on a wild hunch. Knowing what he knows now has cemented his belief that he’s exactly where he’s meant to be: in South Korea, in this band, with Chan right by his side. Fate’s a funny thing.

With a blanket tucked under his arm and sand infiltrating its way into his sandals, he feels like he can breathe easy for the first time in a while. Their car was the first to get there as it seems, so they go ahead to try and snag a spot close to the water. After setting out his blanket and slathering himself with sunscreen (he doesn’t need any more freckles, as pretty as Chan says they are), he sprints towards the water and lets it pull him in with the tides.

He lets out a weak yelp when the cold water touches his skin, but he gets used to it in no time. He dunks his head under the water and stays there, the sound of the ocean in his ears, and god, the quiet is nice. He stays under until he’s run out of air and emerges to the sound of children screaming, which makes him dunk his head under again to chase the quiet.

The second car with the remaining members gets there not long after, but Felix allows himself a few more minutes alone before swimming back to shore. He shakes his hair out and slicks it back away from his face once he reaches dry land. 

When he joins the group on their claimed spot on the beach, he says hello to the other members as they strip their shirts off. He offers a hand to whoever needs help with their sunscreen, sharing anecdotes about coming to this exact beach throughout his childhood. He misses home the most when he’s already there.

“Anyone else?” Felix looks around at all the members, hands spread in front of him and covered in leftover sunscreen.

Chan hops over to him, turning his back towards Felix. “Get my back, will you?”

Felix has a flash of panic. Most of his visions get triggered by passing comments, but there’s a lingering fear that touching Chan will pull something out of him. He’s been restraining himself, only touching or hugging him when necessary and hoping that’ll keep him from seeing something a little too...intimate. He knows that they’ve been _together_ in most of their lives, feels the faint traces of Chan’s fingertips sometimes, but the visual of it might be too much to deal with.

Regardless, Felix slathers the sunscreen on his hands down the expanse of Chan’s back and starts rubbing it in, hoping Chan didn’t pick up on his hesitation.

It’s a weird feeling, knowing they were lovers. He hasn’t _seen_ anything yet, nothing more than a few heated kisses, but he knows. He feels a little guilty having that knowledge, almost voyeuristic, but Chan’s shoulders are so broad and he looks so _good_ that his mind can’t help but wander. Maybe he _does_ want that visual. Just once.

“Are these swimmers new?” he asks, noting the bright red swim shorts Chan is sporting. Maybe some small talk will derail his disastrous train of thought. “I haven’t seen them before.”

“Yeah, my parents gave them to me when I stopped back home yesterday,” Chan says. Since they’ve been in Australia, they’ve slipped easily into only speaking English with each other instead of whatever jumble of languages they usually converse in.

“They look nice.” Felix reaches down to grab the bottle of sunscreen, squeezing more into his palm to smear on the spots he missed. “I like the color. You look nice in red.”

Chan laughs, the bashful and slightly uncomfortable laugh he always lets out when he’s complimented about even the smallest things. “Thank you. I’ll pass on the compliment to Pops.”

The other members have already left to go swim, so Felix finishes up quickly and pats Chan’s shoulders. “Alright, all set.”

Chan turns around and starts walking backwards toward the water. “You coming back in?”

“Yeah, just grabbing a drink first,” Felix says, waving him off. “Go on ahead.”

Chan chucks him a salute before sprinting off to join the rest in the water. Felix pads over to the cooler, leaning down to grab a Gatorade out of the ice, but when he stands back up, his vision starts to blur.

Felix lets out a frustrated groan, shutting his eyes tight and placing a hand on the cooler to steady himself. He knows this feeling all too well, knows that a memory is about to hit him. He’s present enough to be thankful that the rest are off in the water. He takes a couple breaths, preparing, before he slips under.

He’s on a beach. Not the same beach his body is presently on, but conversations overheard in the distance prove it’s an Australian beach. Felix strides through the sand toward where a group of kids, all around his age or a bit older, are gathered around one of the faded-white wooden lifeguard stands.

His parents urged him to get a job before leaving the nest to go to university, so when he heard from a friend that Manly Beach was hiring lifeguards for the summer months, he jumped at the opportunity. Better than retail, he figured, and it lets him chill without a shirt on and people watch all day. He got his required certification a couple days after his last day of school, was given his uniform of bright red swim shorts, and was told where to meet for orientation.

“‘Scuse me,” Felix asks, catching the attention of one of the boys in the group. When the boy turns, raising his eyebrows as a sign to continue, Felix’s breath catches in his throat. He’s hot. Asian of some kind, like him, which is a rarity. And also extremely hot. “I, um—Where am I checking in? For orientation?”

The boy lights up, a dimple indenting on his right cheek. Of course he has a sweet face, contrasting sharply with the fact that he’s already shirtless, washboard abs and strong arms on full display. Felix might pass out before the day even starts. “Ah, right over there.” He lifts a hand, pointing toward a man shuffling through loose pages on a clipboard. “That’s Michael, he’s the head lifeguard. He’ll get you signed in.”

“The guy with the clipboard. That—that makes sense.” Felix swallows, embarrassed, but musters a polite smile in return. “Thank you.” He bolts toward clipboard-guy as quick as he can, trying to salvage whatever dignity he has left.

Once he’s signed in, he’s instructed to join the rest of the group. Michael blows a whistle to get everyone’s attention and begins the introductions, giving the group a quick rundown of what they can expect from the orientation. A handful of them are new, like Felix, while a bunch are returning for the summer during their off months from university. Felix knows that this orientation is mainly for the newbies, so he appreciates that he doesn’t have to deal with an awkwardly intimate tour with only about four people.

Michael finishes his opening spiel and tells the group they’re going to take a tour of the main office. Felix tags along as the crowd is herded up the beach. When he looks to see who is walking beside him, just wanting to gauge the people he’s going to spend the summer with, he nearly trips. Of course, as luck would have it, it was Hot Guy. And Hot Guy is looking right at him.

“This your first year?” the guy asks as they walk, running a hand through the mess of dark curls on his head. Felix is touched that he’s obviously trying to make him feel included, but he sort of wants to bury his own head in the sand.

Felix accepts his demise. “It is. I needed to get a job before uni,” he replies, desperate for his voice to just sound normal. “Sounds like a solid gig, since most of you are returning, yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s the best job I’ve ever had. This is my fourth year back.” He extends a hand out for Felix, and there’s that dimple again. “I’m Christopher. Chris.”

Felix takes his hand. “Felix.”

Chris gives it a firm shake. “If you don’t mind me asking, are you...Chinese? Korean?”

“Korean, yeah. My parents came over right before I was born.”

“Me too,” Chris says, sounding almost surprised.

Felix gets it—he’s used to being different, other, and he can count on one hand the number of Koreans he’s met outside of his immediate family. “We’re few and far between.”

“Hmm. Well, guess we gotta stick together, yeah?” Chris bumps shoulders with Felix lightly. “I’m officially taking you under my wing.”

Felix hopes that the heat in his cheeks isn’t showing outwardly, even if the grin on his face is rather dopey. It sounds nice to not feel _other_ with someone. “I’d like that a lot.”

When Felix comes to, there’s sand in his swimmers. He must have toppled over into the sand while he was checked out. He takes a deep breath to center himself and holds the cold Gatorade bottle he’d grabbed to the back of his neck.

So they were lifeguards together. That’s cute.

It had to have been in the 50’s or 60’s, based on the horrid hair styles of everyone in that memory, and they were in Australia. That was a first; most of his memories have been set in Korea, with the two of them speaking Korean. If his history is correct and his math lines up, that would make this the most recent lifetime.

Something about the proximity makes it feel more real than the other lifetimes, and that makes him feel slightly sick to his stomach. He moves to one of the blankets to avoid more sand in his shorts and takes a shaky sip from his bottle. He’ll get back in the water later once his mind unfogs.

Not ten minutes later, Felix hears Chan calling his name. He sits up from where he’s laid on his back, squinting his eyes to see him through the brightness of the sun. He waves when Chan comes into view.

“Can I sit?” Chan asks, pointing down to the blanket. He looks an awful lot like a lifeguard in those red swimmers, soaking wet from just coming out of the water.

“Of course,” Felix says, scooting over to give him room. Chan plops down and reaches over him to grab the open bottle of Gatorade, causing a bit of ocean water to drip off of Chan’s arm and onto Felix. It makes him shiver despite the Australian heat. “Done swimming?”

Chan helps himself to a sip, then toys with the orange top between his fingers. “Just wanted to check on you. You’ve been here by yourself. You alright?”

 _Not really,_ Felix wants to say. He wants to tell him so badly, like the words are crawling up his throat. “I’m fine,” he says instead. “I’m nauseated for some reason, so I’m waiting a few before getting back in the water.”

Chan nods, understanding. “I’m sorry.” He runs a light hand up and down Felix’s back, always defaults to physical touch as a method of consolation. It’s somehow helping immensely while also making Felix feel worse.

“No, no, don’t be. I’m okay, I swear.”

The air is a little tense around them. “Are you okay otherwise?” Chan asks, softer.

Felix cocks his head. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been...I dunno. Sort of distracted? Like you’ve got something on your mind all the time,” Chan explains, dropping his hand from Felix’s back and cradling it in his lap. “Innie said you spaced out real bad a couple months ago and ever since you’ve seemed...distant. From all of us.”

Felix’s stomach is _aching_ now. He hasn’t noticed a change in his behavior, but it doesn’t really surprise him.

“It’s—It’s not a bad thing,” Chan continues. “If you need some time to yourself or a break from being around us, that’s totally okay. I’m just a bit worried.”

“I’m okay,” Felix says. Lying to Chan feels bad. Lying to any of them feels like a knife to the heart, but it seems like it’s all he’s done lately. “Really. I’ve been a little stressed out but I’m sure I’ll snap out of it soon.”

“Do you want me to see if we can get you to see a doctor when we get back? If you’re that stressed out, then maybe—”

Felix shakes his head a bit too aggressively, stopping Chan in his tracks. A doctor can’t help him. “No. No, no. Chan, I _promise_ I’m okay.”

Chan sighs, and Felix knows what’s running through his mind—he’s frustrated that he doesn’t have an answer, and he’s even more frustrated that he doesn’t know how to help. He knows Chan and how his brain works. 

He’s always known Chan.

“Well,” Chan says, defeated. He stands up with a groan, handing Felix back his Gatorade bottle. “I’m always here, y’know? I’m always here to listen if you ever need anything.”

Felix looks up at him and crinkles his eyes, hoping it’ll ease Chan’s heart just a little. “I know. Thank you. Really.”

Chan presses his lips together into something of a smile back. With that, he walks toward the water to rejoin the others, and Felix lays back down and closes his eyes. Just a few more minutes.

**4.**  
**June, 2019.**

Today’s been particularly bad, on top of the particularly bad past few weeks. It’s left Felix so emotionally exhausted that it takes everything in him to get out of bed in the mornings.

He just wants to know when this will end. He wants to know if he’s in the worst of it and can look forward to functioning like a normal human being again, because sometimes it feels like this is just his life now. It’s ramped up again, the flood of memories, hitting him three, four, five times a day now. New glimpses of lives he’s seen before and new ones that further cement that he and Chan have been together over and over and over again. _I get it,_ Felix thinks to himself every time. _That’s enough. I’ve seen enough._

In the hundreds of flashbacks Felix has had, he’s pretty sure this is the first lifetime where he remembers past lives. He wonders why it’s happening, if the universe is glitching or something, and it doesn’t feel great knowing he might not get an answer to that. Just one more thing lingering over him, kicking him while he’s down.

He can’t tell if this is a blessing or a curse, but lately it’s overwhelmingly felt like the latter. He always feels like crying nowadays—the kind of pent up frustration where his body feels like it’s vibrating with the threat to burst at any moment. He doesn’t, because that would be suspicious, and he lives with too many people to let it get to him. They’ll start asking questions.

They’re already asking questions, though. A few more _‘how are you doing’_ s than usual, tiptoeing around the fact that Felix has shrunken into himself. He didn’t see it when Chan brought it up to him at the beach, but now he can tell that he’s retreating. It’s just so _hard_ , being around Chan especially, and not knowing when a flashback will hit him makes him too nervous to watch TV with them or spend too long at the dinner table. It can’t be helped, he’d decided. This is how things have to be for now, for as long as this hell is going to last.

From where he sleeps, he has a clear view of Chan’s bed right across from him. When they all switched around rooms, he couldn’t do anything but agree to be roommates. It would be more suspicious if he’d said no and it would make Chan spiral, he _knows_ it would, leading him down a path of trying to figure out why Felix hates him now. For all Felix knows, he’s probably already well down that path. Chan just cares so much for them, for Felix in particular. He hates that he’s done this to Chan.

He lies in bed and stares at Chan’s empty bed. It’s 2pm and he’s got a vocal lesson at 3pm. There’s a short break in the middle of their busy tour, giving them a month to rest up before the European leg. Most of them, including him, are using the time to stay on top of their practice, but there’s a familiar tingling in the back of his head and a blurriness to his vision that tells him today might be a no-go.

He checks out, and then he’s back. The trade off of having more frequent memories is that they seem to run shorter, so that’s a tiny silver lining, but something about this one felt…off.

It was a lifetime he hadn’t seen before. He saw Chan, because of course he did. He saw unpaved roads as they walked through a tiny village, shooting the shit with the friends they saw as they walked. He saw them stop at a market to get some food for Chan’s mother to cook for them later that day. He felt fondness for Chan, the swell in his heart of being with your best friend and not having much of a care in the world, too young to have real worries but old enough to know that those responsibilities weren’t too far into his future.

But he didn’t feel love.

The memories are unpredictable most of the time, but there’s a consistency to them that he’s picked up on after months and months of this happening. Whenever there’s a flash of a lifetime he’s not seen before, he always feels _something_ romantic for Chan, be it a small crush when they first meet or the lust and excitement of a new relationship. There’s always something in bloom from the beginning.

But this time, he didn’t feel it. It was friendship. He loved Chan, but as a friend. Something about that makes Felix’s stomach drop.

Felix sinks further into his mattress and pulls the sheets over his head, shutting his eyes tight as he works through the implications. Before, he assumed that they were always together romantically. Always meant to fall in love with each other. He felt some kind of sick comfort in knowing that it would probably happen in this lifetime, too. Something to look forward to. But this memory, this one memory, stripped him of that certainty.

They always fall into each other, but they don’t always fall in love.

If Felix was toying with the idea of telling Chan about this before, he sure as hell wasn’t anymore. The only thing worse than Chan thinking he’s lost his mind is Chan _also_ not having feelings for Felix back.

Felix feels...lonely. It’s a loneliness he’s never felt before, one that nags at him and reminds him that Chan is _it_ for him, and if Chan doesn’t feel the same way, then he’s just shit out of luck for the rest of his life. His mind spirals with thoughts of _my soulmate doesn’t love me_ and _I’m going to die alone_ and _I have to carry these memories with me forever, how will I ever love anyone else?_

He peers out from under the covers and is faced with Chan’s bed again, taunting him. His eyes burn with the threat of tears. He takes a long, deep breath, then pulls out his phone to text his manager and his voice teacher that he’s going to need to cancel for today. 

Another deep breath to keep his emotions at bay. He peels the sheets off of himself and steps out of his room as quietly as he can. The only person home is Minho, he’s pretty sure, but he’s cooped up in his room if the faint sound of music from behind his door is anything to go by. 

He pads over to the last remaining room and pops his head in. It’s empty, thank god. He does some quick mental gymnastics—Seungmin and Hyunjin mentioned that they’re going to get dinner together after practicing, so they’ll be gone for a while. Jisung and Changbin are in the studio, which knowing them means Changbin will stay a bit later than Jisung. 

Jisung. Jisung feels safe right now. Changbin always feels safe, but Changbin doesn’t love other people in his bed unless he’s there with them, so Jisung it is.

He closes the door quietly and crawls into Jisung’s bed, letting himself relax into the plush of the mattress. He takes one more deep breath, then two, and then the dam breaks. He properly cries for the first time since Changbin found him on the bathroom floor. His heart feels ripped in two.

The nastiest parts of him place some blame on Chan, which makes Felix feel guilty to his core, because this isn’t Chan’s fault. He doesn’t know what Felix has seen. He can’t help whether or not he has feelings for Felix. Chan didn’t do anything to make him feel like this, he has to remind himself, but it still feels like Chan is the one gripping his heart with violent hands and tearing it clean down the middle.

Jisung is going to kill him for crying all over his pillow, but that’s a problem for future Felix. Current Felix lets himself cry.

Felix must have fallen asleep, because he’s awoken by the gentle call of his name. He blinks his crusty eyes open and sees Jisung standing in the doorway, looking at him with downturned eyes. He sniffles, cringing at the way his nose is still stopped up from crying. 

“Hey, buddy,” Jisung says softly, greeting him in English as if it’ll cut some of the tension. 

“Hi,” Felix says back, pulling the covers back up over his head so that Jisung can’t see his face.

Jisung switches back to Korean. “You’re in my bed, friend.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Want to tell me why?”

Felix mumbles a noise universally understood as “I don’t know.”

He hears Jisung laugh fondly, which is a relief, because he expected Jisung to kick him out. He didn’t mean to fall asleep there. He feels the bed dip by his feet and he feels a hand rubbing at his leg through the sheets. “Everything alright?”

“I’m okay,” Felix mutters. It's a habit now.

“I don’t think you are, Lix,” Jisung says. He’s being so delicate. “You were crying in my bed.”

Felix stays quiet for a moment. He doesn’t know what to say, so he settles for, “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

He hears Jisung sigh, but the soft drag of his hand on Felix’s leg continues. A sign of _I’m here and I’m not mad_. “I know you don’t,” Jisung says.

“I’m sorry,” Felix whispers. God, he might cry again. It’s a good catch all—he’s sorry for crying on his pillow. He’s sorry for being weird and distant. He’s sorry for not telling anyone what’s wrong. He’s sorry and he hopes Jisung picks up on the nuance.

Jisung squeezes his leg. “Hey, none of that. Don’t apologize for having a hard time.” A pause. “We’re just worried about you. All of us. You know—you’ve _gotta_ know that you’ve been acting differently, right? We miss you. We miss the way you brighten up the room when you’re around us. We miss hanging out with you outside of the practice room and backstage dressing rooms.”

Jisung’s voice cracks, and oh god, Felix is crying again. “We just,” Jisung continues, and he’s definitely crying now, too. He’s always a crier. “We just want to know what’s wrong. We want to know how we can help. Channie-hyung is losing his mind a little, you know? He loves you so much, we all love you so much. Do you want to talk to Channie-hyung? Will that help?”

Felix sobs, curling his legs up closer to his chest. “No. Please, no, I can’t.” He wipes at his eyes and sits up, letting the covers fall around his waist. He’s crying, and Jisung is crying, and this is just a mess. “I’m sorry, Sungie. I’m so sorry, but I...I can’t. I can’t talk about it. I’m so sorry.”

Jisung scoots closer, reaches out, and pulls Felix into a tight hug. “I won’t ask again, I promise,” he says into Felix’s neck, holding onto him like Felix will disappear if he doesn’t hold on tight enough. “I’ll respect that, and I’ll tell the others to respect that, too. But please, please know we’re here when you’re ready to talk.”

“Thank you,” Felix whispers. He gives himself a moment to just feel, to shove away the ugly loneliness and allow himself the warmth of someone’s arms around him. Jisung is nicer to him than he deserves.

When he pulls back, he wipes his nose on his sleeve. They both look rough, but there’s something nice about not being the only one. “I love you, too,” he says belatedly. “I love you all. I really do.”

Jisung coos, reaching out to pet Felix’s hair back into a normal place. “Have you eaten?”

“Not yet. What time is it?”

“It’s 6pm. Minho-hyung left about an hour ago, so it’s just you and me here for now.” Jisung clears the phlegm out of his throat and straightens his back, putting on a brave face for Felix. “Want to get cleaned up and I’ll make us some ramen?”

Felix feels a pull of hesitation, the worry that he might black out in front of Jisung rearing its head, but for once, he pushes that to the side. If it happens, it happens. He feels safe and loved right now, so he smiles and asks, “Do we still have some of the spicy lime chicken ramen left?”

**5.**  
**September, 2019.**

After their show in Yokohama, Felix gets a memory so strong and so vivid that he gets sick in the bathrooms backstage. The memory itself wasn’t bad, just another glimpse at the artist-muse lifetime that he actually enjoys when it shows up, but it left him with blurred vision for a solid five minutes and a migraine that he doubts will go away anytime soon.

The memories have slowed down now, back down to only once or twice a day, but _god,_ they’re stronger than ever. The smells are more potent, the sunlight hurts his actual eyes, and the emotions are so strong that his heart races fast enough to worry him. If he’s honest, though, he’d take this over getting bombarded half a dozen times throughout the day.

After his conversation with Jisung, things have gotten...better. Seeing Jisung cry from worry over him was the tug Felix needed to make more of an effort to go back to normal, and now that the frequency is manageable, he tries his best to include himself in more than just practice and sound check. The members seem relieved, giving him some extra love nowadays. Minho even bought him a new mixer when Felix offhandedly mentioned he was interested in baking, which Felix accepted with a little shock and a lot of gratitude. It helps Felix more than they know.

He makes more of an effort with Chan especially. The memories were never triggered by touch, so he could relax in that aspect. When Felix popped into Chan’s studio one day, just to hang out, he could see the worry on Chan’s face melt away. He’d already had a strong flashback that day, so he felt safe enough to pay him a visit.

“How are you feeling?” Chan had asked, testing the waters to make sure he wouldn’t cross a line.

Felix pulled his chair up to Chan’s side. “I’m good,” he said. It wasn’t a lie that time. He was managing everything better, and in comparison to the worst of it, he felt alright. He leaned his head against Chan’s shoulder, looking up at the complicated song file displayed on the laptop screen. 

Chan sighed, grinning in relief. “Good. That’s...that’s good.”

“Thank you for being patient with me,” Felix added. He felt Chan deserved _something._ “I know I was a bit weird for a while. I promise you did nothing wrong, none of you did. I was just dealing with some things. But I think I’m...better. I’m getting better. I’m sorry, but thank you for not giving up on me.”

Chan put an arm around Felix, tugging him into a hug. Felix missed that so much. When Chan changed the subject and offered to play him some of the songs he’d been working on, Felix didn’t hesitate to take him up on that offer.

Now, though, he doesn’t feel as good. His head pounds as his knees hit the cold bathroom tile. No one saw him run off, which is good, so he washes his mouth out as best he can with water and bolts to find the rest of them before they start looking for him. 

Seungmin greets him with a happy “Oh, there you are!” when he gets back to the dressing room, to which Felix laughs and says something about just needing to pee real bad. They pack up their belongings and drag it all back to their vans, and soon enough they’re checking into their hotel and dividing up room keys.

Felix is sharing a room with Hyunjin, which is always a fun time. He’s still got lingering nerves of blacking out in front of another person, but hopefully his lucky streak continues. 

“We were talking about getting food at the late-night place down the road,” Hyunjin says as he slides the key card into the lock. He tosses his suitcase onto one of the beds to claim it as his own. “You coming with?”

Felix sits down on the unclaimed bed, yanking off his shoes and socks. He’d much rather take his makeup off and brush away the nastiness still in his mouth. “I’m gonna pass, I’m too exhausted. I’ve got some snacks if I wake up hungry.”

Hyunjin gives him a side eye, then juts his bottom lip out into a pout. “You really don’t want to come with?”

Felix feels a pang of guilt, but shakes his head. “Nah, I’m not feeling the best.”

“Alright,” Hyunjin concedes. He starts towards the door to leave, then turns back to Felix. “I’ll bring something back for you just in case.”

Felix sends him a quick wave. “Thanks, have fun.”

When the door clicks shut, Felix lies back against the bed and takes a breath of relief. His head still hurts, so not being around seven other loud boys is nice. Once he musters the energy, he gets up and does his nightly rounds to feel human again.

He scrubs his makeup off, showers, and brushes his teeth twice. With plenty of time before Hyunjin gets back, he’s in his pajamas, tucked into bed and scrolling through TikTok until he gets sleepy.

He hears the door unlock before he has the chance to fall asleep. Hyunjin steps into the room quietly, but when he sees Felix still awake, he walks normally and tosses his bag onto the floor with a thud.

“Got you some takoyaki. I ate my weight in it so I figure you’d like it to,” Hyunjin says, placing the to-go box onto the hotel room’s desk. 

“That sounds so good, thank you,” Felix replies, locking his phone and sitting up against the headboard. 

Hyunjin toes off his shoes, then dives directly onto Felix’s bed. Felix yelps from the jolt, then scoots over to give Hyunjin half the bed to get comfortable. He’ll never say no to a good cuddle if that’s what Hyunjin’s going for.

He’s not, so it seems. Hyunjin splays out on his stomach, looking up at Felix with his chin in his hands. “It’s been a while since we’ve chatted, huh?”

Felix quirks an eyebrow. He’s not sure where Hyunjin is going with this. “Yeah, it’s been a minute.”

“Why didn’t you come out with us?”

“I told you, I’m not feeling well. I’ve got a headache so I just wanted to stay inside.”

“We’re in _Japan._ ”

Felix frowns. “I know.”

Hyunjin exhales dramatically, flipping onto his back and staring up to the ceiling. “What’s been up with you?” he asks, but it doesn’t sound accusatory. “Jisung said not to ask, but I’m asking anyway. Even though you’ve seemed better lately, you were kind of a hermit for a while there.”

Felix shakes his head. “I love you, but I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s...too much to get into.”

Hyunjin tilts his head back to look at Felix, unbothered. “I have time.”

He pauses. He doesn’t know why, but something tugs at him to tell Hyunjin. Maybe he should tell someone. “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” he warns.

“Try me.”

It could be good to tell someone. Healing. Hyunjin feels like a good person to tell, because even if he does think Felix is losing it, he’ll at least entertain the idea. 

Felix groans. “Okay,” he says eventually. “But I need you to promise me, promise more than you’ve ever promised anyone, that you’ll keep this between you and me. And that you won’t go running to Channie-hyung or the managers saying that you’re worried about me or something.”

“Well, this is already a little scary,” Hyunjin says, eyebrows perked.

“I’m so serious,” Felix drills in. “You’ve got to promise me.”

“Yeah, yeah, I promise.”

Felix holds out his pinky finger and looks Hyunjin dead in the eyes. “ _Promise_ me.”

Hyunjin senses the seriousness now and sits up, crossing his legs in front of him so that he’s level with Felix. He wraps his pinky finger around Felix’s and says cutely in English, “I promise.”

“Okay,” Felix breathes, unlinking their fingers and placing his hands in his lap. Where does he even start with any of this? How much is he really going to tell Hyunjin? He makes his decisions quick. “Do you...do you believe in, uh, reincarnation? Or soulmates?”

Hyunjin looks confused right off the bat. “This isn’t where I thought this was going at all. Uh, not really?”

“Yeah, I didn’t either,” Felix laughs pitifully, picking at the skin of his fingernail as he speaks. “I told you, you’re going to think I’m making this up, but I swear on my life I’m telling the truth.”

“Alright,” Hyunjin says, nodding slowly. “Hit me. I’m listening.”

Felix opens his mouth to start talking, then backtracks. He tries to start again, but all that comes out is a long, loud groan. “Okay. Okay, okay,” he mutters, boosting up his own courage. “Okay. So. For the past ten months or so, I’ve been...seeing...memories. Flashbacks. Of what I think are past lives with someone.”

Hyunjin stays quiet, a sign to continue.

“It started with this one wave of memories, like a bunch of little ones that I couldn’t really piece together, but it was really bad. And then I was getting them a couple times a week, like these long drawn out memories of me with someone. That someone is in every single memory I have, and in 99% of them, we’re...together. _In love_ together. And if those memories are anything to go by, I’ve been with them since the start of fucking time or something.”

Felix looks to Hyunjin for any sign of comprehension. Hyunjin appears rightfully perplexed, but nods regardless, urging Felix to continue.

“So then I started getting them, like, all the time. At the worst of it, I think the most I got was 8 times in one day. I just check out for a bit and then I come right back to earth. So when it was really bad, I had this...fear. That I would be around you guys and I’d have one of those memories and then I’d have to explain to you all what’s going on. Which would likely end up with me at the doctor or something, because I _know_ how crazy this sounds. I’m fully aware.”

Hyunjin can’t help the cackle that leaves his mouth. “I mean, you do sound pretty out there, but,” he shrugs his shoulders, ”I’m fascinated.”

Felix feels himself relax at the sound of Hyunjin’s laugh, reassured that Hyunjin isn’t going to freak out on him. “Maybe it’s fascinating if you’re not the one it’s happening to. It’s really hard, you know? Dealing with this alone, not able to tell you guys, and on top of all of that was this loneliness knowing that I have someone I’m meant to be with that I just...can’t.”

“Hmm.” Hyunjin links his hands together, holding them up to his mouth. “And it’s always the same girl? You’re always with her?”

Felix stiffens up. He knew this was coming; this was one of the quick decisions he had to make. “Boy.”

“Huh?”

“Boy. It’s always the same...boy. But yes, I’m always with him. Different lifetimes, same person.”

“Oh,” Hyunjin breathes, sitting up straighter now. “ _Oh._ Boy.”

“Before you ask, no, I’m not going to tell you who it is.” It could give it away, Felix worries. Hyunjin can’t hide his emotions. If Hyunjin knows it’s Chan, he wouldn’t tell him, but he _would_ probably act weird when Chan and Felix were near each other. Leaving that detail out is for the best. “That’s the line I’m drawing, if that’s okay.”

“No, that’s totally okay,” Hyunjin hurries to say, waving his hand dismissively. “But like—hmm. I don’t know where I want to even start.”

“It’s a lot, I told you.”

Hyunjin furrows his eyebrows together, visibly trying to arrange his thoughts. “What do they feel like?”

“The memories?”

“Yeah.”

“They feel like...movies. Like I’m watching a movie but it’s through my eyes. I know it’s me. Lately I’ve been able to smell and feel and taste things so realistically, like they’re my own memories.” Felix runs his hands through his hair. “I mean, I guess they’re mine? But they’re also not mine. They’re past-me’s. I don’t even totally understand it. All I know is that I’ve seen hundreds of them, and I—”

Felix’s vision suddenly blurs and his breath catches in his throat. This shouldn’t be happening again so soon. He shuts his eyes tight, cursing under his breath.

Hyunjin’s eyes blow wide open, reaching out to grab Felix’s arm. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what? What is happening? Are you okay?”

“It’s happening. I’m— _fuck_ —of course it’s happening right now. Sorry, hold on.” 

“What is? Lix?”

Maybe talking about it openly triggered a memory. That would make the most sense. He inhales through his nose, grabs onto Hyunjin’s hand tightly, and then he’s gone.

This one is...a lot. He’d somehow managed to go ten months without seeing anything explicit, but of course the powers that be would choose right now, in front of Hyunjin of all people, to show him exactly what it feels like to have Chan over him, under him, inside of him. Now he’s cursed with the knowledge of what Chan looks like naked and sweaty. He has to live with knowing what Chan sounds like gasping Felix’s name, hands tugging at his hair as he unravels.

When he comes to, he gasps for air and releases his grip on Hyunjin’s hand. He shutters, trying to immediately shake off the sensations that were a _little_ too real for his liking right now.

“What,” Hyunjin starts, low in his voice, “the _fuck_ was that.”

“I told you!” Felix says, still catching his breath. “I told you. I black out, have a flashback, and come back.”

“Oh my god.”

Felix shakes out his hands, trying to bring feeling back to his present body. “How long was I out? I’ve never been able to ask anyone.”

“Like! Thirty whole seconds!” Hyunjin is close to whisper-screaming now. “That was so scary. You just stared at _nothing_. I thought you were dying or something.”

Felix can’t help but laugh. It’s almost funny now that he can share this with someone else. “That’s interesting. That was a solid four or five minutes for me. Do you believe me now?”

Hyunjin runs his hands over his face. “Oh god, I have no idea. I guess? My brain says not to believe it but I’m not ruling out the possibility. Not after that.”

“Honestly? That’s more than I was expecting so I’ll take that.”

“This is wild,” Hyunjin slurs, jaw hanging open like he was faced by a ghost. He’s clearly still trying to calm down from the shock. “What did you see?”

Felix pales. “Uh. You don’t want to know, I don’t think.”

After a few uncomfortable beats of silence between them, Hyunjin processes what Felix meant. His features twist up, hands flailing in front of his face like he’s swatting away the unwelcome visual. “Gross, Lix. That’s gross.”

“I can’t help it! That was the first time that’s happened.” Felix covers his face with his hands, wishing he were anywhere but in this room. “It’s usually innocent stuff, like kissing or holding hands or lounging around in domestic bliss. I was a prince once, so that’s pretty cool.”

“That is pretty cool,” Hyunjin says under his breath. He flops back onto the bed, arm slung over his eyes. “Okay. Say this is all real and you’re not playing an elaborate prank on me. Why don’t you tell him, then? If you’re always together, then you’ll be together in this lifetime too, right?”

Felix swallows. God, this always sucks to think about. “Not always. Romantically, I mean. We always find each other, but there’s been a couple where we’re just...friends.”

“Really?”

“Unfortunately. Plus, how could I tell him about this? It’s hard for you to believe me and you’re probably the most likely to.”

Hyunjin hums in agreement. “That...sucks.”

Felix lets out a hollow laugh. A comedic tragedy. “Yeah. It sucks.”

“Well,” Hyunjin says, wiggling his way up to lay his head on Felix’s lap. “Thank you for telling me, even if it does feel like you told me a very elaborate fairy tale. I hope you and loverboy end up with your happily ever after.”

“Thanks,” Felix sighs, carding his fingers through Hyunjin’s bangs. “I hope so, too.”

Hyunjin preens from the attention, eyes fluttering shut contently. “And now that I know, can we hang out again? I miss kicking your ass in League of Legends. If you black out during a game then I have a higher chance of winning.”

Felix shoves Hyunjin off of his lap, grinning despite the backhanded sincerity. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll see,” he teases. “Go warm me up that takoyaki.”

Hyunjin scoffs at Felix’s gall. “Do it yourself.”

“I’m vulnerable!”

It’s like their conversation never happened, which is exactly how Felix hoped this would go. Hyunjin rolls his eyes, but stands up to grab the to-go box anyway.

**+1.**  
**January, 2020.**

The memories stopped two months ago. 

It seemed to end with little fanfare, but in retrospect, what Felix saw was a fitting end to the whole saga. It was nighttime in a familiar park in Sydney, the streetlights casting shadows over the slopes of Chan’s face. It was the lifeguard one, Felix recalled afterwards. Chan stood close to him, his hands on Felix’s cheeks and foreheads pressed together. 

“I love you,” That Chan said, a wobble to his voice giving away his nerves. “I think we were meant to find each other.”

That Felix gripped at Chan’s shirt, wanting to be as close to Chan as possible. “I love you, too,” he said back.

“Be mine. Please, be mine,” That Chan pleaded, to which That Felix replied with, “Of course.”

They kissed, and they laughed, and they promised each other in more words that they were starting the rest of their lives together. When Felix came back to the present, he felt raw and wounded. _That_ Chan wasn’t his Chan, and _that_ Felix wasn’t him. He never got used to that whiplash.

He could still feel Chan’s hands cradling his face. The universe was cruel for making his last memory the most vivid confession of love he’d experienced to date. It was a giant neon sign flickering _TELL CHAN,_ and all Felix did was shield his burning eyes and ignore it.

The first day he went without blacking out at all, Felix was suspiciously optimistic. On the third day, Felix scrolled through hundreds of posts on their instagram to find the picture he’d posted the day the first wave of memories hit. That day was still clear in his mind, too monumental to ever forget what he was even wearing that day. When he found the post, he checked the date under the caption. It all stopped exactly a year to the day. 

Telling Hyunjin made the last few months of it easier. It was nice to have somewhat of an ally, even if he still wasn’t sure if Hyunjin fully believed him. Sometimes he’d go to Hyunjin’s room after a difficult flashback, curling up in bed with him without needing to say more than, “Had a bad one.” On more than one occasion, Hyunjin noticed him swaying on his feet and starting to check out when they were around someone else. Hyunjin promptly steered the conversation away from Felix and smoothly guided the other person away, giving Felix the few seconds of privacy he needed. No questions asked.

Now that things have gone back to normal, the fear of constantly going near-comatose no longer hanging over his head, the heartache has been easier to manage. Being around Chan still tugs at him in ways it never did a year prior, but for the most part, it’s back to a low-grade background hum of ache instead of a constant onslaught of loneliness.

Sometimes, in the early hours of the morning when Felix is struggling to sleep, he wonders why this didn’t happen to Chan, too. He wonders if he’ll have to carry this burden alone and see Chan fall in love with someone else one day. He wonders if he’ll ever find love himself. It will probably feel like settling for less.

With a clearer head, though, he’s happy it’s over. He can plunge his feelings down and force himself to move on. He has to move on.

They’re in Atlanta, two shows into the American leg of their tour. Performing is also easier now that Felix doesn’t have to worry about getting hit in the middle of a song. He’s thankful the universe spared him from that embarrassment, and he couldn’t be more relieved to fully throw himself back into doing what he loves.

The show has gone well, nothing more than a few hiccups they could laugh off. Hyunjin forgot a lyric, but covered it up by having the crowd sing. A few feet were stepped on during choreography changes. All in all, nothing too bad in the 21 songs they’ve performed so far.

The screens close and the lights go down as soon as they finish performing Miroh. They all run backstage for their last clothing change, allowed only a few minutes during the VCR to catch their breath and get into their casual ending outfits. 

Felix rips his in-ears out and lets a staff member wipe the sweat off his brow, tinted red from his fresh dye job. He goes through the motions on autopilot, stripping out of his performance shirts and into a clean t-shirt, and moves quickly to start putting his mic and in-ears back in place.

The staff yell they have one minute to get into their positions. When he spins around to locate the rest of the members, he sees Chan, and his heart drops into his gut.

Chan stands off to the side of the room with his fists clenched tightly in on themselves. His back is ramrod straight and his eyes are blown wide, staring in front of him at absolutely nothing. He’s completely checked out. Felix knows exactly what’s happening.

He drops the mic around his neck and sprints over to Chan. By the time he’s maneuvered himself through the makeup artists and staff members, Chan snaps out of it, gasping for air and reaching for the nearest thing to keep from buckling under his own weight. Felix reflexively slips an arm around his waist to hold him upright until he catches his footing.

“Oh my god. Felix?” Chan understandably sounds terrified.

“I know,” Felix says as solidly as he can. His heart is jackhammering in his chest but he needs to keep calm. “You’re alright, you’re good.”

“What the fuck? What just— You’re—“

“I know, Chris. I _know_.” Felix holds eye contact with Chan, needing him to understand that Felix knows what just happened. Chan nods in recognition, but he’s never looked more panicked.

“How long was that? Are we late?”

“No, it couldn’t have been more than half a minute. We’re good on time.”

Chan lowers his tone into something pitiful. He looks like he might cry. “What is going on?”

Felix has to look away. If Chan cries, he’ll cry, and that cannot happen thirty seconds before going on stage. “I don’t know. It happened to me, too, but it’s way too much to get into right now.”

“ _What?_ When?”

“Like, a year ago. Doesn’t matter. Listen,” Felix lets go of Chan’s waist to face him and grab his shoulders, “we only have like, three songs left. We can talk when we get back to the hotel. For now, I need you to pull it together as best you can for the rest of the show. Okay? Just three songs and your speech. That’s it.”

Chan lets out a shaky breath and straightens his posture, visibly reprogramming himself back into leader mode. “Okay. Okay, we’ll talk after.”

Felix pulls Chan into a quick hug despite the time crunch they’re on. “Let’s go,” he says, taking Chan by the wrist and navigating them to their spots with only seconds to spare.

It’s the longest three songs he’s ever performed, but they both pull it together long enough to make it back to the hotel without the members catching onto anything weird happening. They ended up in separate cars back, which was good, because Felix needed a minute away from Chan to process.

Chan remembered. While Felix hoped that he would one day, he hadn’t considered what would happen when he did. On one hand, it means Felix wasn’t losing his mind over the course of that year. It felt like a boulder lifted off his shoulders. On the other hand, now they had to talk about it. Now Chan knows that they’ve spent lifetimes together, in love, and that Felix has been lying by omission for over a year.

 _Just asked Minho to switch rooms with you,_ Chan texted him on the way to the hotel. _Said I needed to talk to you. I’m in room 412._

Felix feels acid rising in his throat as he takes the elevator up to the fourth floor. He passes by the room he stayed in the night before and beelines to Chan’s room before he chickens out and hides in the bathtub or something.

He knocks lightly. A few moments later, Chan opens the door and steps aside to let him in with a tentative hello. He waits for Chan to sit down on one of the beds, then sits on the edge of the other bed to face him.

It’s awkward for a few moments. Neither of them seem to want to be the one to break the silence and neither can seem to peel their gazes away from their laps. Chan clears his throat, deciding to speak up first. “So,” he starts.

“So.”

“So, this is a new one, huh?”

“Hmm?”

Chan finally looks up. “Being bandmates. Apparently we’ve found each other in a thousand different ways, but being in a band together is a new one.”

Felix huffs out an exasperated laugh. “I suppose it is. You’ve already got a better grasp at what’s going on than I did.”

“Yeah, about that,” Chan says, furrowing his eyebrows together. “When did this happen to you? How did I not know?”

“Over a year ago,” Felix admits. “Not this past November, but the one before.”

Chan mutters a _Jesus_ under his breath. “Why didn’t you tell me? That’s...that’s so long.”

“Would you have believed me?” Felix asks. He can feel himself getting defensive. “Like, honestly. Would you have believed me if I told you I was getting...memories or flashbacks or whatever and that we’re fucking soulmates or something?”

“No, probably not. You’re right.” Chan runs his hands over his face. “I have so many questions.”

Felix toes his shoes off and crosses his legs on the bed. Might as well get comfortable. “Ask away.”

“Did it happen more than once?”

Felix snorts. “Oh my god, literally hundreds of times.”

_“What?”_

“Okay, let me start from the beginning.” Felix clasps his hands in his lap. “The first thing that happened was this, like, first wave of memories. It was like a bunch of little movies all happening at once and I got glimpses into all of these past lives or something. I think they’re past lives, I can’t think of what else they could be. But I saw you in every single one of them.”

Chan nods. “That’s what happened earlier. But it was you through my eyes, I guess.”

Felix’s heart clenches. “Yeah. It was really overwhelming. You handled it better than I did because I was like, crying on the bathroom floor and Changbin-hyung found me. It wasn’t a good time.”

“Oh, _Lix._ ”

“No, no, it’s fine. He doesn’t know what happened. Anyway,” Felix waves his hands to get back on topic, “then I started getting the memories one flashback at a time. Individual scenes. It started once or twice a week, then once a day, then just a _ton_. Remember when Innie told you he caught me staring off into space and he was worried? He saw me when one of them hit me. It was hard to do anything without worrying it would suddenly happen.”

Chan looks as if he wants to say something, so Felix pauses and gives him the space to talk.

“I don’t want to assume,” Chan said softly, “but is that why you were so distant last year? Is this the thing you were going through?”

Felix swallows. “It was a lot to deal with alone. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, but I also couldn’t let you all see me blacking out all the time because I would have been carted off to the doctor. I was fine, physically.”

“But not emotionally?”

Felix shifts his weight uncomfortably. “It was a lot,” he repeats.

Chan has a guilty look written all over his face as he stares blankly at a spot on the floor. He doesn’t seem to know what to say.

“So yeah. It happened a ton, then it slowed back down around the time that I started acting a little more normal. Then after a year, it all stopped. Hasn’t happened since November.”

Another beat of silence. Felix can see that Chan is thinking himself into the core of the earth.

“I’m so sorry,” is all Chan can muster. His voice sounds thick.

“Please don’t be,” Felix says, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs to be just a few centimeters closer. “Please. I’m okay, yeah? I’m just kind of...letting you know what your next year might look like.”

“I wish I’d been there. I wish I’d...I wish I could have helped."

“I know you do,” Felix says softly. He steps off the bed, letting his body move without thinking, and sits next to Chan on the edge of his bed. He links his arm with Chan’s and lets his head rest on the other’s shoulder. “There’s nothing you or I could have done. I’m just happy that you’re not going to have to go through it alone either. And actually, Hyunjin knows, so you have him, too.”

Chan whips his head toward Felix. “Hyunjin knows?” he asks, more surprised than anything.

Felix giggles. “Yeah, I told him a few months before it all ended. I don’t know if he believed me, but he took me seriously enough to give me some support.”

“So he...knows? About us?”

“No, I didn’t tell him who it was. I just told him the general idea of what was happening.”

“And he didn’t tell anyone.” Chan sounds kind of proud of Hyunjin. “Huh.”

“Right?” Felix unlinks his arm with Chan, opting to scoot further onto the bed with his legs crossed again. He should give Chan some room to breathe. “So if you also tell him, he’ll definitely believe us.”

Chan follows suit, readjusting himself to face Felix. His fingers tap against his knees, which Felix knows means he’s jittery and nervous. “Can I ask another question?”

“Of course.”

“Everything I saw is still a little blurry. I didn’t really get the full picture of everything I saw, but I did notice—“ Chan clears his throat again. “I noticed that we were together in most of them. _Together_ together.”

There it is. Felix knew it was only a matter of time before this conversation would need to be had. “Yeah.”

“ _In love_ together.”

“Yeah,” Felix says again. “Yeah. We were.”

“Is this one of them?”

Maybe it’s Felix’s optimism coming through, but Chan sounds almost hopeful. His eyes look so kind and so warm, and it’s making tears well up in Felix’s eyes. He decides that he won’t lie anymore. “For me, it is.”

Before Felix can second guess his decision, Chan folds himself forward and puts his face in his hands. “Oh my god,” he breathes out, as if he’d been holding his breath for hours. “Oh my god, me too.”

Something in Felix’s brain short-circuits. All he can do is stare at Chan with his jaw hanging open. He knows he needs to respond, but he’s not sure if he can form a cohesive sentence.

He hadn’t thought about what would happen if Chan felt the same way either. It felt too distant, too unrealistic. For as many times as he’d seen them together in memories, he sure wasn’t prepared to hear Chan admit it now.

Chan peeks an eye through his fingers. “I need you to say something,” he says, half-muffled by his hands. 

A weird squeak comes out of Felix’s throat, so he slaps his hand over his mouth. He tries to gather his thoughts, tries to think of the romantic things he’s heard himself say in countless lifetimes, but all that comes out of his mouth is, “Are you sure?”

Chan’s laugh rips out of him. “Am I _sure_? Felix, I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.” He scoots closer to Felix until their knees touch and places a hand on Felix’s thigh. “I’m going to be cheesy for a moment, okay?”

Felix nods, still frozen from the shock of it. His eyes are already welling up. Today did not go anywhere near as expected.

“From the moment I met you, I knew you were going to be special to me. I always felt like I was missing something in my life in Australia, and then I moved to Korea, and I still felt like a part of me was missing.

“And then I met you, and something just...clicked. I felt whole for the first time in my life, and I had found a purpose with the band, and everything was lining up. Falling in love with you just kind of happened, but it would be too risky to ever tell you, you know? I’m the leader—I’m supposed to be level-headed and logical.” 

Chan lifts a hand to wipe a tear off of Felix’s cheek. “But this? What’s happened to us? It’s not logical. I’m throwing logic and guilt to the side for a moment to just...be happy about this.”

Felix chokes out a sob, throwing his arms around Chan and burying his face into his neck. “You love me?”

“I do,” Chan says, like it’s the surest thing in the world. “And I can’t imagine what your past year was like not knowing that. I’m so sorry.”

“I love you, too,” Felix says. It’s so freeing to say out loud. “I love you so much. Please don’t be sorry, I’m just happy you don’t have to go through it, too.”

Chan noses at Felix’s hair as he holds him. “Maybe it’ll be fun, seeing all those lifetimes that lead us up to right now.”

Felix pulls back, wiping his forearm across his eyes. “Some of them are pretty cool,” he says, his voice still watery. 

“Any that you wanna tell me about?”

“Nope. Gonna let you experience them firsthand like I did.”

Chan just smiles, pulling Felix by the back of the neck to press their foreheads together. “I can’t wait to see them, then.”

Felix sucks in a breath and closes his eyes. He’s never been this close to Chan before, not really. None of it feels real, but he’s more present in his body than he’s been in as long as he can remember. Their noses bump gently as the gap between them closes.

It’s a bit awkward at the start. Their front teeth knock together when Chan leans forward first, but he laughs against Felix’s mouth and eases the tension. “After doing this a thousand times, we should be better at this,” he rasps, ghosting his lips over Felix’s as he speaks.

Felix giggles and pulls Chan in to kiss him properly. Once they get the hang of it, they move slow, languid, like they’ve got all the time in the world. Felix has felt Chan kiss him before in dozens and dozens of memories, but this feels different. It’s almost electric, like the universe is celebrating this victory and shooting off fireworks in their honor.

Parting the kiss is almost painful after so long of wanting, but it’s worth it to see the kiss-bitten, floaty look on Chan’s face. 

“I have a _soulmate_ ,” Chan breathes, cheeks dimpled into a blissed out grin. It’s like he’s remembered it all over again.

Felix runs his fingers through Chan’s hair. There’s a swell deep in his chest, a foreign feeling that he doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of. He tugs Chan to him again and says against his lips, “And he loves you.”

*******  
**February, 2020.**

Falling into a rhythm with Chan was easy, but Felix didn’t expect anything less. Nothing changed between them, really, aside from the added bonus of the whole ‘being in love with your soulmate’ thing. They spend their first night together making up for lost time in more ways than one. 

It’s still a secret for now. They’re only a couple weeks into finding their footing as a couple, so they’re giving it some time to settle in, but they’ll tell everyone in due time. There are logistics Chan needs to weigh before deciding how open they want to be. The risks are mostly with the public and within the company, so they know they have to be careful, but neither of them want to keep it a secret from the people closest to them.

They’ll tell the members first—that’s a given. They deserve to know as bandmates and as friends, but they also deserve an explanation as to why Felix was so uncharacteristically introverted for the better part of a year. Whether they believe them or not, they’ll see, but it’ll give the members context for when they catch Chan mid-memory and momentarily catatonic.

Felix feels a lot of things, but a big one is the relief that Chan won’t go through this alone. Chan’s had a few flashbacks so far, triggered by random things in everyday life like it did for Felix in the beginning. The difference is that Chan always comes to him, bouncing and excited to share what he’s seen. It’s recontextualizing everything that Felix had once resented into something so full of wonder. It doesn’t feel like a curse anymore—it feels like a miracle. He’s so in love.

Although, there was an elephant in the room while they discussed everything, and his name was Hyunjin. Felix brought up that they should tell Hyunjin about it first since he already knows, and Chan eventually agreed. If Hyunjin could keep Felix’s secret for so many months, he could keep this secret, too.

They step off stage after a successful show in Los Angeles. They’re sweaty and running off of adrenaline as they unmic themselves and cool down in the green room. Chan’s been nervous about blacking out in front of a crowd, but Felix reassures him that he’d be fine. It never happened to Felix, so hopefully it won’t happen to Chan.

Soon enough, they’ve got their belongings packed up and the staff are ushering them through the empty backstage hallways to where their cars are parked. They file out in no particular order; Minho, Jisung and Changbin talking at the front, Jeongin laughing at something Seungmin said, Hyunjin walking alone with his headphones in, and a few managers scattered throughout. Felix and Chan hang towards the back with a clear view of them all.

Felix saddles up to Chan and leans into his ear. “I think I’m gonna tell him,” he whispers, eyeing up at Hyunjin.

Chan raises his eyebrows. “Right now?”

“Why not?” Felix asks. There aren’t many times where Felix can get Hyunjin alone, so now feels like a good time while everyone else is distracted. 

Chan shrugs. “Go for it.”

Felix readjusts his bag on his shoulder and jogs up to Hyunjin. When Hyunjin registers Felix next to him, he tugs out one of his headphones. “What’s up, baby?”

“I have news,” Felix says, voice hushed as a sign for Hyunjin to keep their conversation on the downlow.

Hyunjin pulls out his other headphone. “Oh?”

“Remember the whole soulmate-past lives-memory thing? How my secret loverboy hadn’t remembered anything by the time mine stopped?”

“How could I forget?”

Felix grins. “Well, he remembered. He got the same first wave of memories a couple weeks ago.”

Hyunjin stops both of them in their tracks. He stares at Felix with a dropped jaw, and Felix can see that Hyunjin _finally_ believes him. “Wait, are you serious?”

Felix looks behind him at Chan, who is failing to keep his laughter in. He must have seen Hyunjin’s reaction. He catches up to Felix and Hyunjin, looks around to make sure no one is watching them, then plants a kiss directly on Felix’s cheek and walks ahead of them like nothing happened.

Felix’s cheeks go red, still smitten with the newness of it all, then locks eyes with Hyunjin. He tips his head and raises his eyebrow in a way that says _I told you so._

Hyunjin looks like he might pass out. “ _CHANNIE-HYUNG?”_ he screeches, loud enough to echo off the concrete walls of the hallway.

Chan barks a laugh from a few feet ahead of them. Felix instinctively clasps a hand over Hyunjin’s mouth, to which Hyunjin reacts like a 5 year old and licks Felix’s palm.

Felix scowls and wipes his hand on Hyunjin’s shirt. “Gross.”

“Oh my god,” Hyunjin whines, exasperated by this earth-shattering discovery. He realizes how far behind the crowd they’d fallen and nudges Felix forward to keep walking.

“I was serious,” Felix says, shoulder-checking Hyunjin lightly. “You can ask him, he’s happy to corroborate my story. Don’t tell anyone else, though. We’re just telling you because you’re...more aware than the rest of the situation.”

Hyunjin curses under his breath. “Of _course_ it’s Channie-hyung,” he says, throwing his hands up in the air dramatically. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely happy for you. But of _course_ it’s him. Why wouldn’t it be him? I should have seen that coming from a thousand kilometers away.”

Felix’s cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. There’s a bit of satisfaction knowing that others have seen something in the two of them that they hadn’t seen themselves.

Hyunjin is right. Of course it’s him.

**Author's Note:**

> did i set that one scene in atlanta bc i was at that show? yes. did i accidentally make hyunjin my favorite character? also yes.  
> thank u for making it this far. let me know if you liked it, no kudos or comment is too small <3  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/elvenlix) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/cypher3killr)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] tethered.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28439730) by [cryptonomica podfics (cryptonomica)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptonomica/pseuds/cryptonomica%20podfics)




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